Last Wednesday, that horrible raining, cold windy night, after I got home drenched from my bike drive home, even with good rain gear, I heard a meow from under our house. I figured it was just a cat scared by the rain and would come out when it was dry. The next day, Thursday, when I got home that night, my wife told me how she'd heard it under the house. It was still cold, so I thought it was just staying under there. I grabbed a flashlight and thought I saw two kitten eyes halfway between the opening and the other side of the space under the house. My wife said the meow wasn't coming from that way, and that it had been from the same place for a full day. I tried to get under, but it was too small a space, and she could get under, but was afraid of creepy-crawlies getting on her. So we prayed it would find its way out.
While I'm at work, my wife calls our landlord to get the cat out, because neither one of us wants to be haunted by a dead cat under our house. His helper comes and being small and skinny he crawls under. He comes out and says, "You're not going to believe this, you're not-" The landlord tells him to calm down, but the helper is still a little stunned. Our landlord, with some difficulty, is able to get under the house and my wife hears him shout, "Well, cat, how'd you do that!?"
The helper goes under with tools and comes out with a PVC pipe. With a kitten's head sticking out of it. The kitten's head had gotten out of the pipe, but the pipe was narrower at that end, so it couldn't back out and was stuck. They used a handsaw to saw the pipe off the kitten's body. Then the landlord sawed the remaining pipe off of the kitten's head by having the pipe held in a vise.
I was a cat hater until my Antimony cat adopted me for 11 years before she passed. My wife wasn't that fond of cats, but she liked Antimony. As soon as she saw this kitten's head stuck in that pipe, she felt she had to take care of it.
We talked about shelters, or people we knew who had cats, but it was Friday after 5pm before he was finally completely rescued. Bottom line, my wife did not want to part with this cat. She called him Houdini, because, though he didn't escape by himself,it was an escape artist miracle that he was able to get out at all. She calls him Hooey, short for Houdini.
He's just a few weeks old, but already learning to hunt and be a tough cat. I'll play with him, but he's my wife's cat, and he is a really sweet kitten.